Every support placed, whether it is a Designed Support (DS) or a Standard Support Assembly (Assembly), has a local coordinate system associated with it.
By default, the local coordinate systems are always orientated with LCS North along the pipe, LCS east to the side of the pipe, and LCS Elevation in the global Up direction. For standard supports on sloped pipe, the LCS North is horizontal, not sloped with the pipe. There is one exception to this, for assemblies on vertical pipe; the LCS Elevation axis is not global Up, but rather to the side of the pipe.
These local coordinate systems are provided to facilitate creating drawings with consistent views. When creating a drawing, you can use the Use object coordinate system check box when creating a view so that the view is always looking at the same side of the route object. For example, if you set the Orientation to Looking North, that view always looks at the end of the route object.
Changing the Local Coordinate System of a Design Support
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Right-click on the design support
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Click Local Coordinate System
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Click Properties
to view the Coordinate System Properties dialog box.
The Properties dialog box for a Design Support contains a User override of LCS option. If you change the local coordinate system for a design support, this property is set to True. If this property is set to False, the software orients the local coordinate system to the default orientation.
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After a local coordinate system is selected, you can use Rotate Object
command to rotate it.
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You can modify the local coordinate system for design supports only. You cannot modify the local coordinate system for standard supports interactively, but, you can change the support code and implement OrientLocalCoordinateSystem() function to do so.
Changing the Local Coordinate System of a Standard Support
The CSD code for any Standard Support can be modified to change the orientation of the local coordinate system for that particular assembly. To do so, you must override OrientLocalCoordinateSystem(). For example:
// ------------Define the local coordinate system configuration-------
// NOTE: The format is strictly defined 'Only X axis and XY plane of local
// coordinate system needs to be defined
// The first pair is always the reference hanger port index/name
// It can be reference port ("Route", "Structure", "BBSR_Low") or existing
// symbol port. Local coordinate system will be referred as -1, and with
// port name "LocalCS"
public override void OrientLocalCoordinateSystem()
{
JointHelper.CreateRigidJoint("-1", "Route", "-1", "LocalCS",
Plane.XY, Plane.ZX, Axis.Y, Axis.Z, 0, 0, 0);
}